Heidi POV

I stared at his name on my screen. My thumb hovered over the call button. I took a shaky breath and pressed it.

The phone rang. Each tone stretched into an eternity.

Just as I was about to hang up, someone answered.

"Hello?"

The voice wasn't Easton's. It was female, languid, with a purr that scraped against my raw nerves.

I knew that voice.

Catarina Kane.

My knuckles turned white around the phone. "Why do you have Easton's phone?"

My own voice was flat, dangerous.

A soft, breathy laugh. "Oh, sweetheart. He's a little... tied up right now."

A deliberate pause.

"Showering. You know how it is at Hawthorne Manor—so much to clean up."

Every word was a perfectly aimed blow.

Hawthorne Manor.

The confirmation landed like a fist in my stomach.

Before I could speak, Catarina's tone shifted, becoming intimate, as if she were talking to someone else in the room.

"Darling, your fiancée is on the phone."

The line went dead.

I stared at the silent phone. The dial tone was a shrill scream in the quiet salon. Nausea and rage washed over me in a dizzying wave. I shot to my feet, and a sharp, twisting pain in my abdomen made me double over.

"Ms. Lynn, are you alright?" Laura, the manager, asked, her face a mask of concern.

I didn't answer. I tore the gown off, my movements jerky and violent. I pulled on my own clothes, my hands shaking so badly I could barely work the zipper on my skirt.

I stormed out of the salon, past the shocked faces of the staff, and into the waiting car. A cold, miserable rain had begun to fall.

"Take me to Hawthorne Manor. Now," I told my driver, Mike.

The drive was a blur of smeared lights and the rhythmic thump of the windshield wipers. Each mile was an agony. When we finally pulled up to the imposing gates of the estate, I saw it.

Easton's Bentley. Parked right in front.

"Wait here," I told Mike. My voice was hollow.

I got out, not bothering with an umbrella. The icy rain soaked my suit, plastering my hair to my scalp. I barely felt it. I moved across the manicured lawn, drawn to the warm glow of a large window.

I peered inside.

A fire crackled in a massive stone fireplace. And there he was. Easton. He wore a soft cashmere sweater, looking perfectly at home.

On the sofa next to him, curled in a silk robe, was Catarina.

In her lap, purring, was a fluffy white Persian cat.

My world stopped.

I watched as Easton reached out. He stroked the cat's head, his fingers moving with a familiar grace. He scratched under its chin. The cat arched into his touch.

The man who claimed a severe allergy. The man who made a show of waiting in the car, protecting himself from the mere possibility of dander.

The allergy was a lie.

Five years of calculated gestures collapsed into one hideous joke. That single, silent action hurt more than the fifty million dollars. The money was business. This—this was the intimate foundation of our life, and it was fake.

A guttural sound—something between a sob and a scream—tore from my throat. I couldn't watch anymore. I stalked to the French doors at the side of the room and shoved them open.

They weren't locked.

Easton and Catarina snapped their heads toward me. Catarina gasped, shrinking back against Easton.

For a heartbeat, something flickered in Easton's eyes. Calculation. He stepped toward me, his voice a controlled murmur.

"Heidi. Let's talk outside. Privately. Whatever you think you saw—"

"Don't."

My voice trembled with a rage so profound it felt like it was holding my skeleton together. I stepped back, out of his reach.

"Don't you dare try to manage me."

Easton's jaw tightened. The mask of indifference slid into place. "Fine. This is a private matter," he said, his tone shifting to annoyance. "You shouldn't be here."

My gaze slid past him to the cat, which stared at me with wide green eyes. "I thought you were allergic to cats, Easton."

For a split second, something crossed his face. Panic. Gone as quickly as it appeared.

"It's not as bad as I thought. What's your point?"

His casual dismissal was the final blow. A wild, desperate laugh bubbled out of me. "My point? My point is our wedding dress fitting. My point is you've been lying to me for years about something so stupid."

Catarina let out a delicate cough. "Easton, I'm not feeling well," she murmured. "All this shouting..."

Instantly, his attention shifted. He put a protective arm around her shoulder. He turned back to me, his voice laced with steel.

"Look what you've done. She's fragile. You need to leave. We'll talk later."

He was shielding her. Protecting Catarina from me. Treating me like an intruder.

The last bit of warmth in my heart turned to ice. I stopped laughing. I stopped trembling. I just looked at him—the man I was supposed to marry—holding another woman.

"There is no 'later' for us, Easton," I said. My voice was eerily calm.

I turned and walked back out into the rain. The pain in my abdomen flared again, a vicious, searing cramp that stole my breath.

Behind me, I heard the heavy thud of the French doors being closed.

The sound of my world ending.

Heidi POV

The first hint of grey dawn was filtering through the windows when I heard the soft click of the lock.

He was back.

I hadn't slept. I'd spent the night on the cold leather sofa in the dark, the silence of the vast apartment pressing in on me.

Easton walked in. He looked tired. In his hand, he carried a small paper bag with the familiar paw-print logo of The Gilded Paw Café.

He placed the bag on the marble coffee table. The scent of coffee and toasted almonds—once my favorite comfort—now smelled like a lie.

"Sweetheart, I'm sorry about last night," he began, his voice a low, placating rumble. "Things got complicated."

He moved to embrace me. But as he drew near, a different scent hit me. Not his. A subtle, woody fragrance that clung to his cashmere sweater.

Le Labo Santal 33.

Catarina Kane's signature scent.

I recoiled as if burned. I took a sharp step back.

Easton's arms froze in mid-air. His expression shifted from contrition to confusion. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

"What is it?" he asked. His voice was level, but an edge strained beneath it.

"Don't touch me," I said. Flat.

He dropped his hands. "Heidi, don't be dramatic. Catarina had a breakdown. Her family is a mess. She needed a friend."

A friend. He was calling himself her friend while wearing her perfume.

My eyes fell to the paper bag on the table. The cute little cat logo seemed to mock me. I thought of him stroking that cat, of all the times he'd sat in the car, performing his lie.

Without a word, I picked up the bag, walked into the kitchen, and dropped the entire thing into the stainless-steel trash can.

It landed with a soft, final thud.

Easton followed me, his eyes blazing. The mask of patience was gone. "What the hell is wrong with you, Heidi? I drove all the way downtown at 6 AM for that!"

I turned to face him. "I've lost my appetite."

My quiet calm seemed to unnerve him more than shouting would have. A flicker of something that looked like fear crossed his face before arrogance replaced it.

He grabbed my wrist. His grip was tight. "We are getting married in two weeks. You don't get to act like this over a misunderstanding."

I yanked my arm out of his grasp with a strength that startled us both. "A misunderstanding that smells like Le Labo and costs fifty million dollars?"

The number hung in the air between us, cold and heavy.

He froze. A flicker of panic in his eyes, quickly masked. He went on the offensive.

"You went through my phone?"

"It was on the screen, Easton. Right there for the world to see," I shot back. "Just like your lies."

He saw he couldn't bluff his way out. His patience snapped. The charming fiancé disappeared, replaced by the cold tycoon.

"Fine," he sneered, straightening his collar. "You want to be difficult? Be difficult."

He didn't offer another explanation. He simply turned, picked up his car keys from the counter, and walked to the door.

"I have a board meeting," he said, his hand on the handle. "We'll finish this conversation when you've calmed down."

The door slammed shut. The sound echoed in the empty apartment.

I stood alone in the kitchen. I looked at the trash can, at the croissant slowly soaking up spilled coffee. A violent wave of nausea churned in my stomach.

I ran to the bathroom, my hand clamped over my mouth, and retched into the toilet. Nothing came up but bitter acid. The pain in my abdomen seized me again—a sharp, twisting cramp that made me curl into a ball on the cold marble floor.

I looked up, catching my reflection in the mirror. My face was pale. My eyes were hollow.

I was done waiting for him to tell me the truth.

I was going to get it myself.